1930 India, Khyber Pass
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- Publication date
- 1930
- Topics
- Kashmir, Shalimar gardens, Khyber pass, Sufi, Dervish, India, Touring, Tourism, Jammu, Pakistan, Dal Lake, Caravans, Srinagar, Pakistan, Mughal architecture, Mosques
- Item Size
- 1.4G
Shotlist
This film was made by American tourists, Arthur and Kate Tode in 1930, so it takes place before partition and under British colonial rule. Some of the spellings in the inter-titles of this silent film are incorrect as well as many of the values expressed by the amateur filmmakers. We hope that the footage is still valuable to some extent as a primary source material and deeply regret what racism exists in the language of the inter-titles.
This film was preserved under grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation
There is additional footage of many of the places seen below at https://archive.org/details/upenn-f16-0515_Gwalia_Deli_Lahore_Khyber The intention of this second reel is that it would be seen in color, it is made with lenticular filtration. Some day it may be possible to capture the footage once again as it was intended.
Lahore, the capital of the Punjab and the seat of Kipling’s Kim
Train station sign for Lahore
The famous Kim gun or Zamzama. The thunderer under whose shade Kim’s resolutions were formed.
Images of Kate Tode and Arthur Tode next to a giant cannon called the Zamzama.
The Diwan- I- Am within the fort of Lahore.
A sign :“The scene of the transfer of the sovereignty of the Punjab to the British government March 1849” also written in Urdu or Persian.
Scenes of a courtyard unchanged for hundreds of years.
Some workers are rolling the grass with giant lawn rollers.
Title: The Badshahi Masjid mosque.
Scenes of the exterior of the mosque, followed by two young boys playing inside.
Toddlers playing inside the mosque.
Title : The Baradari. A marble pavilion built by Ranjit Singh
Scenes of the exterior marble architecture .This is within the Hazuri Bagh, and as noted was constructed by Maharajah Ranjit Singh.
Title: The Sonehri Masjid or golden mosque is situated at the junction of two streets were India teaming millions pass
Scenes of street life and a busy marketplace beneath a very large mosque, The correct spelling is Sunehri Masjid..
Title: Native blacksmith shops, find shelter on the exterior walls of the Wazir Khan mosque.
More street scenes featuring canopied shops. Brief use of the exterior of the mosque.
Title: Built in 1634 by Hakim Alaud-din of Chiniot the structure of the Wazir Khan mosque and its decorations are notably Persian in character.
Hakeem Ilam-ud-din Ansari was known in his professional life as Wazir Khan, hence the name of the mosque.
Panning down from the Minaret to the decorative at the bottom
Title: At the gardens and tomb of Emperor Jahangir.
View from the interior of one of the arch doorways, looking out at Gardens.
Landscaping work being done by gardeners and man is watering the grass with a sack made of an animal skin.
Title: Well-known Shalimar Gardens built by Shah Jahan in 1637 A.D. are along the Grand Trunk Road to Amritsar.
A pan shot across a vast reflecting pool inside the gardens.
Men standing on a balcony overlooking unique water feature in which water travels over decorated tiles at a 45° angle.
Women and men having disembarked from a train are loading packages onto their heads. The train station sign says Amritsar Junction.
A brief tracking shot featuring some street scenes in Amritsar and depicting some Sikh people in turbines walking in marketplace.
Title: Amritsar. The religious capital of the seeks as viewed from the Baba Atal tower.
A Longview pan of the entire city of Amritsar.
Title: Here is located the world, famous golden Temple of Amritsar.
Interior view of the reflecting pool and the main temple in Amritsar.
Families enjoying the tanks at the Golden Temple.
Title: Old Man River, A guardian of Amritsar’s Golden Temple.
An elderly gentleman, a Sardar carrying a lathi.
Title: The Golden Temple is called the Dar bad Sahib by Sikhs and Hindus.
Shot down from the top of the temple to the reflecting pool. A little shaky. The same shot of a gentleman and a turban with a suit jacket.
Title: En route to Peshawar and the Indo Afghan frontier via —
A pan across the title of the train, which is called the Frontier Mail. Apparently, they are planning to ride the mail train.
Title: The strategic railway of Northwest India that runs as far as Peshawar and the Khyber Pass is well fortified where it crosses the river at Attock
Very shaky pan shots from the window of the train, showing a bridge crossing the river. The train stops at a crossing, possibly a bridge over a dam. The sign identifies At Tock.
Title: Arriving at the capital of the Northwest frontier province. This territory has been under British rule since 1849.
Train station sign, “Peshawar Cantt” also in Hindi and Urdu.
Men in various different costumes, sitting aside, the rail track some wearing lungi and some are dressed with more coverage, including turbans.
Three small children by the track.
Title: Peshawar/ Paris of the Pathans. City of 1001 sins and the gateway to Kabul, Bokhara, and central Asia.
A pan shot of the entire city, from a rooftop or a High view.
A city view showing one of the entry gates to the city. Wide street and fancy shops.
Area vehicles, including oxen, carts, traversing the city Street.
Title: Mahsuds, Waziris and Afridis- Afghan Pathans all- and Turkomans, Tartars, Povindahs, Persians, Hasaras
(Mahsuds refer to themselves as Maseeds, Hasara is spelled Hazara)
Tracking shot from a cart or vehicle showing the various people walking around the marketplace.
Title: Beggars, thieves, dwarfs, XXXXXX, clowns, fakirs, rose sellers, and purveyors of charas move here on equal terms.
Shaky tracking shot from my vehicle of people walking in the street and doing their business. Some scenes of people getting services on the street such as haircuts. Not clear if Tode is referring to cannabis sales in his intertitle.
Title: Where the street of the storytellers and the bazaar of the coppersmiths converge in the city of opium, jealousy, and sudden death.
A long tracking shot of the marketplace and street with people going about their business.
Title: A trip to Kohat through the tribal territory of the Northwest frontier where no man walks abroad after dark.
A large road sign : Tribal territories.
Title: Tribes men’s villages on either side – each house in itself a fortalice, Its high fighting towers surrounded by tall, blind walls, loopholed for rifles.
A pan shot of some walled compounds
Title: Women bricklayers of Kohat.
Women in chadors tossing bricks up a ladder to be caught and skillfully to add to a wall in construction.
Traveling along the road.
Title: Passing a native rifle factory in Kohat Pass .
More road shots.
Title: A trip through the famous Khyber Pass, the Valley of Sudden Death and the most strongly fortified mountain defile on earth.
Title: The Khyber is the funnel through which India’s ravishers have poured ever since history began – assuredly one of man’s oldest highways.
Horses and barren ground.
Title: Fort Jamrud , at the eastern end of the Khyber – some 10 miles from Peshawar.
Donkeys grazing in front of a fort in the distance
Title: The days of Omar Khayam and his songs are reproduced in the Khyber for generations, for century is there have filed through it the caravans of rich commerce.
Caravan of camels and oxen, and people wandering through the pass.
Closer angles from behind of camels carrying large burdens on their backs
Title: One of the fascinating annual migrations in the world there’s no greater human pageant then there’s to be seen anywhere.
Some baby camels trotting along behind their mothers.
Title: Britain’s fortresses guard the Pass, and all the hills are crowned.
Some high mountain views.
A small airplane overhead.
Title: Ever see a locust swarm? Here is one numbered in the millions at Fort Shabai in the Kyber.
We think he is referring to Fort Shagai , Khyber Pass. Scenes of locusts swarming in the air.
Title: An Afridi village in the Khyber near Landi Kana; each family has its own w-alled fort and watchtower, for Afghanistan turns a frowning battlement to the incoming world.
Landi Khana is probably the site…Tracking shot shows the outside of a fort
Title: Ali Masjed Gorge, the narrowest part of Asia’s most historic pass: the knife cut in the towering walls of the Hindu Kush range.
More shots of a caravan
Title: The caravanserai at Landi Kotal.
Title: Here they sweat and pant and curse in a medley of Hindustani Pashto, the Afghan language.
A pan shot of a resting area
Title: Through this rocky defile have passed in the course of ages, Persians, Greek, Seljuk, Tartar and Mongol armies, and have swept in the hard of such great conquerors as Darius, Alexander, the great Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Barber and Ahmed Sha.
A birds-eye view of the pass.
Title: The Hindu Kush mountain range in forbidden Afghanistan.
General views of the region.
Title: The famous sign on India’s Northwest frontier reading “It is absolutely forbidden to cross the border into Afghan territory “ has been replaced by another .
Pathan guards at the station at the border
The new sign reads “Frontier of India. Travelers are not permitted to pass this notice board unless they have completed the passport regulations.”
Title: But the command is synonymous as no passports have ever been issued by any nation into Afghanistan.
Title We did cross the border into Afghanistan ( but that’s another story )
Pan of Mr. and Mrs. Tode plus local officials and friends.
Title: The thirty three mile pass, cutting through the steep cliffs, sometimes narrowing to fifteen feet, guarded against fierce Afridi tribesmen is one of the strangest trade routes in the world.
Shaky pan shot of the road from the distance.
Title: Lindbergh drove up Fifth Avenue so did we see and photographed the Khyber.
A fancy touring car with Kate Tode sitting up high on the back seat filming with a second movie camera.
Title: Miles of camels, majestic, tail to nose,nose to tail, bearing salt, cotton, and sugar from India, along the road to distant Samarkand – –
Good medium shot of camels connected by rope and string
Camels large and small
Tracking shots of camels
Title: Swinging gloriously past miles of camels, nose to tail , tail to nose, bearing the wares of Asia into India under military escort to protect them from brigands.
Medium shot of camels and owners followed by tracking shot by car and then a nice steady shot of a group resting.
Title: Vacationing in Kashmir
Srinagar is the summer capital of the native north Indian state known as the domain of the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir.
Title: No railroads run to Srinagar
From Rawalpindi we traveled the curving line of the river Jhelum for some 200 miles through the mountains worth of the Pir Panjal Pass.
Various signs are seen, including Kashmir state boundary.
The roaring Jhelum river. Several shots
Title: An overnight stop was made to the Dak bungalow at Barsala.
Title: Unusual heavy rains and a severe weather had flooded the Jhelum river and carried away the permanent stone bridges: so the natives had strung catwalks across the stream..
A flooding stream with the waterfall.
Signs of flooding near a village.
Title: The dirt road cut out of the mountain sides along the Jhelum was washed out in many places.
People struggling to get up a rocky road. Also the car belonging to the Filmmaker.
Title: Aren’t these two men shovels tricky?
Two men on either side of ropes with a scoop in the middle to dig out from the road
Title: The country around the Hill Station at Uri, where on the second day, halt was made for lunch.
Shot of a roaring river
Title: A view over Srinagar, “city of the sunrise“. A garden set between the wide sunbaked plains of the Punjab and the maze of the great Karakorum mountain ranges.
Along panoramic view over the plains and city.
Title: The Takht e Suleman, or throne of Solomon venerable Hindu temple, dominates the city of Srinagar.
A view of a sharp mountain range and ancient temple at the top
title: And in Kashmir, as in all India, manpower is cheaper than horsepower.
People pushing heavy cart down the road. Several examples.
Title: Many of Srinagar’s inhabitants live afloat on odd, long pointed boats, called dungas.
Beautiful shots of dungas, and peoples’ houseboats on the lake in Kashmir
Title: English made their contribution in the development of the houseboat in Kashmir.
(The boats seen here are Victorian and style having a lot of gingerbread, but I think the influences are more Indian than British. Or perhaps they are a hybrid. Some of the earlier houseboats seen in the footage are simpler in that they have thatched roofs, but I think the assumption of the Todes is incorrect because some of the fancy boats would likely have belong to upper class Kashmiris)
Title: Pounding rice, the chief food of the native Kashmirites.
Rice being pounded in a large pestle
Scenes of sawing wood
Title: Vice consul Dorsey Gassaway Fisher accompanies us on an aquatic shopping tour.
Close up, a young gentleman in a fedora hat winking at the camera.
A giant sign that says “Patronized by HRH P of W (His royal highness the Prince of Wales)
K. Sufour Husain and sons . Suffering Moses, the best papier machi makers and wood carvers, etc.
It seems in this shop they made or sold papier Mâché objects as well as wooden.
Trying on a robe locally purchased while having teatime on a houseboat. The Todes with Mr. Fisher.
Title: The pleasure of the hookah – – a mammoth water pipe.
A view from above of two Kashmiri men with round caps, enjoying some smoking on a boat
Title: Like the Taj Mahal, the Shalimar Gardens are a memorial.
A pan shot, including Kate Tode, and a lot of birds in the garden
Title: Gliding along in a shikara comfortably ensconced amidst numerous gaily embroidered cushions one can enjoy life and Kashmir and let the rest of the world go by.
Kate is seen sitting on board the shikara, which could be seen as a fancy sort of water taxi or pleasure boat, highly decorated
With Arthur going down a canal.
Many lovely scenes of people on shikaras and other more utilitarian boats.
Title: Another day we wrote to Gulmarg up in the Pir Panjal and nestled in the high western range of the great Himalayas (and incidentally hiked the last 3000 feet toward heaven.)
Scenes of snow topped mountains
Scenes of the group riding on horseback up to the mountains
Title: Picnic lunch on the porch of the residency at Gulmarg.
The Todes having libations on the porch outside in snow, with the colonial representative, Mr Fisher. Everyone is in bare feet.
Title: Followed by a well-deserved nap after our [being] unused to exertions.
Title: A Kahop film of 1930. Real no. 22.
Title: Seven curious bridges of varying dates span the river Jhelum at Srinagar and along the shore, quaint old wooden houses lean at a rakish angle.
More waterways and shoreline architecture.
Some of the very different forms of bridges.
Title: A jumble of rickety wooden houses, royal palaces, balconied shops rich trade men’s homes, mosques, and temples – – all with a foreground of sweeping river and background of snowy mountains.
Shots of five story homes on the riverbank. And distinctive bridges also many different kinds of houseboats.
Title: The Jhelum River carries on its bosom multitudes of rough timber craft, great grain barges, light Shikara, Dunga, and ornate houseboats built on quasi-English lines.
Scenes of the above, as seen from the water.
Title: Learning the three Rs at a an open air Kashmiri school.
Young boys in one circle and older boys in another outside under trees. No facilities or implements can be seen.
Title: One day we went to Shalimar on a corner of Dal Lake, the stately pleasure gardens of Emperor Jehangir and his favorite wife, Nur Mahal.
Clouds and mountains pan shot, then a reflection on water and simple dugas.
A scene of Kate and Arthur enjoying some wine and snacks in built structures of the garden.
Title: While at Srinagar , we visited Archibal in the land of Lalla Rukh — some 60 miles distant.
Pan of an empty plane
Corrected name place: Achabal Gardens, "the places of the princes" Landscape scenes and ruins.
Title: On the road to Archibal one sees their best, the giant ribs of the roof of the world hung above the black plateau of Tibet
Landscapes. Achabal Gardens, built by Nur Jahan.
Title: Color, life, and animation on the fountains play at Archibal.
Fancy fountains in the gardens. Achabal fountains.
Arthur Kate and an unknown gentleman possibly Fisher having a picnic on the grass. Toasting with wine perhaps.
Title: Returning to Srinagar with snow mountains on either side.
Landscape views very high mountains, the Himalayas covered in snow.
Title: We’re leaving Kashmir we went by shikara to Nishat Bagh– – the Gardens of the Empress Nur Jahan.
Scenes of a long sloping bridge and some dead trees in the midst of a lake.
Title: It was Hindu new year (April 13)and thousands came to see the fountains play.
Sign for Nishat Bagh.
Many people enjoying the beautiful mansion of the Empress, the fountains and boat rides.
Many Muslim kids and families can be seen with head scarves and kufis, alongside Hindus and others..
Title: Beautiful Nishat Bagh with its fretted marble water slides, long fountain filled water channels, masses of flowers, and Chenar trees of immense size
Corrected spelling, Chinar trees. People can be seen in there, Fancy festival clothes. Muslims and Hindus alike.
People sitting on the grass and on blankets enjoying hukkahs
Title: A holy man comes to collect homes and bless the children – – who are not wholly appreciative
This holy man is a Sufi mendicant.
Title: Although travelers from Srinagar to Rawalpindi, two hundred miles away, who had left the floor us were seven days on the journey, we managed to go through in one day.
[ perhaps he means because they had a car].
Shots of more rugged cars than seeing earlier struggling to make it through the road.
Title: Heavy rains had made the mountain roads all but impassible.
Their truck struggles to get through some deep ruts full of water.
Kind people help them get through they struggle up and up . Passing a sign which is marked ”Road entirely closed”, now pushed to the side.
Title: Farewell to the veil of Kashmir and the mighty Jhelum river.
View of the river and valley from a great height
Title: Goodbye at Rawalpindi to our friends, the Rada Kishen sons as we left for Lucknow, “the garden of India” and the capital of Oudh.
- Addeddate
- 2009-03-17 16:13:00
- Color
- b&w
- Identifier
- upenn-f16-0740_various_india_1930_khyber
- Sound
- silent
- Year
- 1930
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